A number of us from the ongoing Wilding AI project just returned from the Fiber Festival in Amsterdam, where we had an open lab day and residency as part of our research into using machine learning and AI in workflows that centre sound. Many of us are investigating the idea of “sonic agents” (e.g. Maurice Jones’ project “feral ai”) but we all have our own takes on the concept of “wilding” and how it might apply to the research-creation AI space.
And therein lies our strength, and the strength of the project: that we all bring our own perspectives, interests and opinions to the group, and that we listen to each other; that we get inspired and stay curious; and that we all move and grow together in our own ways. Like a tree maybe – each branch has its own pattern, size, shape, density, but every branch is a part of the tree, and they are ways the tree stays nourished, shoots its roots into the ground, reaches for the sun, drinks in the rain, provides shelter and shade when the days grow too hot.
Every one of us has different levels of bewilderment and surety in this very broad field of what we currently call “AI”. Each one of us has their own set of refusals and embraces in what they want to do and how they want to do it (here’s a link to a powerpoint of the talk I gave at the open lab day). And we by no means all agree all the time. But what each person brings to the group is welcomed, listened to, sifted, expanded and deepened through being together in all the different ways.
I know I keep coming back to listening and ways of being together, sometimes in ways that don’t make sense on the surface when discussing specifics about, say, rehearsal rooms in Canadian theatre, or machine learning, or sound designing. But I do that because I keep learning the same lesson, over and over, everywhere – the ways in which we show up in a room (virtual or IRL) has a profound effect, more than any tool, any software, any code.
It’s the thing that I know, and that I keep knowing, and what I always find down at the bottom of everything, lifting us up, softly and strongly.
